As I try to pick one option, it amazes me how much anxiety one little drop-down menu can induce. All they need to know is my “Religious Orientation”. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a box to put myself in, right? Especially given how big the boxes we call “hashkafic labels” are. The slight complication, however, for myself and many others, is that I can’t hit control and select more than one option. The site isn’t programmed that way, nor are the labels we use.
A recent conversation with a friend on the aforementioned topic resulted in my decision that if my parents’ encouragement that “I can be anything I want to be” holds true, then I choose to be in the Flying Dinosaur category.
My friend supported this decision, the YUConnects drop-down menu did not. Please don’t take this as a criticism of YUConnects, a truly amazing resource that I wholeheartedly support (mostly in the form of member dues). This is not a problem they created nor one that they solely contend with.
I’ll admit, this is weighing heavily on my mind currently because I just made a major life move and switched labels, on YUConnects and on myself. When I first created my profile, after some deliberation, I decided to put myself in the “Modern Orthodox (Machmir)” box.
Modox-Machmir (it has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?) is a good, socially acceptable label that defined me decently enough…maybe. I made sure to write a long exposition explaining that I wasn’t really Modox-Machmir in the classic sense, but rather towed the line between Modox-Machmir and Modern Yeshivish and gave examples to indicate such.
Why not just choose Modern Yeshivish you may ask? Well, apparently Modern Yeshivish is the only label with a clear cut, specific definition. And it doesn’t mean being between Modern and Yeshivish. Go figure. I may not have an available box I fit into, but it definitely isn’t “Modern Yeshivish”. Unfortunately, Modern Yeshivish but not “Modern Yeshivish” isn’t an option on YUConnects.
And now we come to the events of one fateful night a few weeks ago. I logged into my account after a relatively long hiatus and decided some tidying up was in order. The soul-searching opportunity provided by the High Holidays had helped me conclude that in the months between setting up my profile and now, I had decisively stepped out of any box beginning with the word Modox.
Which left me stranded; box-less.
I tried (not for the first time) to get a concrete definition of what the label “Yeshivish” meant, to no avail. It seemed that every person who I asked either gave me a different answer or shrugged and said they really couldn’t define it. When a friend asked me what it meant, I said the same thing. So I figured that if nobody could state the parameters there’s no reason to say I didn’t fit in them. More importantly, “Religious Orientation” is a mandatory question.
So with a deep breath and burst of courage, I climbed into the Yeshivish box and plastered the label on my forehead.
I can’t say that I feel any more comfortable in the Yeshivish box than I did in the Modox-Machmir box. For both I feel like asterisks and explanations were needed. While I’m proud of myself for reaching this point, stepping out of the Modox box section feels a little like sailing in unchartered waters. And even though I’ve been moving towards Yeshivish for some time now, this just made it official, even if the jury is still out on whether or not I made landfall.
Now comes the big question: Why do I care so much? Husband-hunt context aside, does it really matter how I hashkafically define myself? And the even bigger question: Are hashkafic labels a necessity to begin with?
I don’t know that I have the answer to all my questions, but I do have a thought. We, as social beings, like belonging; not just being a fringe member of the group. The ability to conclusively state which box we belong in means that, by definition, we have a box where we belong.
There’s a lot of comfort in boxes, that’s why we always played in them as kids (or still do. This is a no judgement zone). We don’t want to be that weird shaped kitchen tool that sits by itself on the Pesach shelves next to all the dishes packed away neatly in perfectly sized boxes.
Would it be possible to find other uniquely shaped kitchen supplies in all those boxes that could fit in their own small box with the sad and lonely apple corer and peeler thing? Yes, it would. But that would require a lot more manpower, abstract thinking and boxes which may not be available. It would require an entire new system for packing dishes into boxes and singles into SimchaSpot posts.
Making shidduchim is as difficult as parting the Red Sea to begin with. So for now, I’ll continue aspiring for the day when I can just be Ariella (last name pending), and in the meantime work on my petition to YUConnects to add Flying Dinosaur to the list.
Boxed In and Standing Out: The Problem of Self-Definition on YUConnects
As I try to pick one option, it amazes me how much anxiety one little drop-down menu can induce. All they need to know is my “Religious Orientation”. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a box to put myself in, right? Especially given how big the boxes we call “hashkafic labels” are. The slight complication, however, for myself and many others, is that I can’t hit control and select more than one option. The site isn’t programmed that way, nor are the labels we use.
A recent conversation with a friend on the aforementioned topic resulted in my decision that if my parents’ encouragement that “I can be anything I want to be” holds true, then I choose to be in the Flying Dinosaur category.
My friend supported this decision, the YUConnects drop-down menu did not. Please don’t take this as a criticism of YUConnects, a truly amazing resource that I wholeheartedly support (mostly in the form of member dues). This is not a problem they created nor one that they solely contend with.
I’ll admit, this is weighing heavily on my mind currently because I just made a major life move and switched labels, on YUConnects and on myself. When I first created my profile, after some deliberation, I decided to put myself in the “Modern Orthodox (Machmir)” box.
Modox-Machmir (it has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?) is a good, socially acceptable label that defined me decently enough…maybe. I made sure to write a long exposition explaining that I wasn’t really Modox-Machmir in the classic sense, but rather towed the line between Modox-Machmir and Modern Yeshivish and gave examples to indicate such.
Why not just choose Modern Yeshivish you may ask? Well, apparently Modern Yeshivish is the only label with a clear cut, specific definition. And it doesn’t mean being between Modern and Yeshivish. Go figure. I may not have an available box I fit into, but it definitely isn’t “Modern Yeshivish”. Unfortunately, Modern Yeshivish but not “Modern Yeshivish” isn’t an option on YUConnects.
And now we come to the events of one fateful night a few weeks ago. I logged into my account after a relatively long hiatus and decided some tidying up was in order. The soul-searching opportunity provided by the High Holidays had helped me conclude that in the months between setting up my profile and now, I had decisively stepped out of any box beginning with the word Modox.
Which left me stranded; box-less.
I tried (not for the first time) to get a concrete definition of what the label “Yeshivish” meant, to no avail. It seemed that every person who I asked either gave me a different answer or shrugged and said they really couldn’t define it. When a friend asked me what it meant, I said the same thing. So I figured that if nobody could state the parameters there’s no reason to say I didn’t fit in them. More importantly, “Religious Orientation” is a mandatory question.
So with a deep breath and burst of courage, I climbed into the Yeshivish box and plastered the label on my forehead.
I can’t say that I feel any more comfortable in the Yeshivish box than I did in the Modox-Machmir box. For both I feel like asterisks and explanations were needed. While I’m proud of myself for reaching this point, stepping out of the Modox box section feels a little like sailing in unchartered waters. And even though I’ve been moving towards Yeshivish for some time now, this just made it official, even if the jury is still out on whether or not I made landfall.
Now comes the big question: Why do I care so much? Husband-hunt context aside, does it really matter how I hashkafically define myself? And the even bigger question: Are hashkafic labels a necessity to begin with?
I don’t know that I have the answer to all my questions, but I do have a thought. We, as social beings, like belonging; not just being a fringe member of the group. The ability to conclusively state which box we belong in means that, by definition, we have a box where we belong.
There’s a lot of comfort in boxes, that’s why we always played in them as kids (or still do. This is a no judgement zone). We don’t want to be that weird shaped kitchen tool that sits by itself on the Pesach shelves next to all the dishes packed away neatly in perfectly sized boxes.
Would it be possible to find other uniquely shaped kitchen supplies in all those boxes that could fit in their own small box with the sad and lonely apple corer and peeler thing? Yes, it would. But that would require a lot more manpower, abstract thinking and boxes which may not be available. It would require an entire new system for packing dishes into boxes and singles into SimchaSpot posts.
Making shidduchim is as difficult as parting the Red Sea to begin with. So for now, I’ll continue aspiring for the day when I can just be Ariella (last name pending), and in the meantime work on my petition to YUConnects to add Flying Dinosaur to the list.